Evans: “We’ll analyse and improve”

Reading tasted defeat for the first time in nine games on Tuesday evening when Brentford brought that run to an abrupt end at Griffin Park with a 4-1 win.

Midfielder George Evans was, naturally, disappointed with the performance and the result but felt the team will take that lessons from the fixture and put them to good use.

“We’ve got a fantastic squad of lads here; it’s a great group and we need to look forward to Saturday now,” said Evans. “Everyone is disappointed with tonight’s result but we need to bounce back and make sure we get the win on Saturday and put this behind us.

“We will go through the video with the gaffer and work out what we did wrong and what we could do better next time. We’ll analyse the game and make sure we improve from this.

“We are all learning, we’re still improving and we’ll be looking forward to Saturday against Derby. We’ll go through the clips, set things right and go towards Saturday in a positive way and try to take the result.”

Brentford got their nose in front shortly before the break through Josh Clarke – and that was moments after Evans’ header, from a John Swift corner, had cannoned away off the post and the Bees survived the ensuing goalmouth scramble.

Lasse Vibe doubled the lead before the break – and after an open start to the second period, Maxime Colin slotted in the third. Yann Kermorgant slotted away a penalty to reduce the arrears when Stephen Quinn was felled in the box, but Scott Hogan added late gloss with a cool finish.

“We knew what we were up for and we said that we needed to start the game well,” Evans explained. “We started okay… but we needed to be a bit sharper to those second balls. There are some goals that could have been prevented there. When you go away from home, the longer you can keep the opponents from getting a goal the better it will be. So the lads are very disappointed.

“I hit the post from that header from a corner – if that goes in, it’s a different game. And then we hit the post again in the second half through Callum Harriott – we’ll be looking to convert those chances into goals next time and get ourselves into winning positions.

“We talked at half-time and said that the next goal was vital and that we needed to make sure it was ours. We weren’t able to do that and we gave them the next goal, so we were all gutted. Allowing them to score first in the second half made it difficult for us to come back from.”